Fatal Fury: Wild Ambition

The Fatal Fury series goes charging into the 3rd dimension...and falls flat on its face.

When Capcom announced that it was going to take what is arguably its biggest 2D franchise into the 3rd dimension, people were excited... and pissed. After all, how could one of the best 2D fighting series possibly make the leap into 3D without losing its charm?

Capcom was confident, however, and handed the project off to Takara, who presented the world with the EX series. It wasn't better, it may not have been as good, but it was different. And it worked.

SNK's fighters have always been amazing. Fatal Fury and Samurai Showdown have been staples of arcade gaming since the fighter genre began. Seeing the success that Capcom had with its baby, SNK decided that giving the Fatal Fury series that 3D facelift might work just as well. Maybe they should have thought a little harder.

Gameplay In a fighter, control means everything. Not just button mashing, but response to the directional controls, and recognition of combos. Street Fighter EX had an amazingly complex combo system that allowed many multi-hit combos to be linked together, but FF: WA's combos are just amazingly complex. The "Super Special" moves are insanely difficult to pull off (in classic FF style), and the overall effect is rarely worth the effort.

Control is annoying, because everything seems to happen just slighty after you execute it - not so fast that it's right on, but not slow enough to be a predictable lag. The overall presentation feels rushed and weak. This is not a step forward for the series, it's a leap backwords into the days of the 16-bit system ports.

Graphics Ahhhh something that I can comment at least semi-nicely on. The in-game graphics in FF: WA are not great. They're just like most of the game - average. However, the game's animations are top-notch. Fluid and varied, the animations actually make the end result of pulling some of the tougher moves a little more worthwile -- but only a little. The opening FMV, however, is absolutely stunning, boasting near-Namco or Square quality.

SNK's earlier promise of a solid 60 fps doesn't hold up. There are moments when the frame rate jumps up to around that number, but there are just as many when it reaches 15. In fact, the knockout hit rewards the player with a "slow-mo" sequence whereby the opponent falls to the ground at a mind-blowing 10 fps. The backgrounds are the Tekken-style 360-degree image wrapped around a 2D plane that serves as a floor. While Tekken and SF EX had at least interesting textures to match the background, Wild Ambition's floor is a drab, lifeless texture, and somehow manages to stand out from the background even more than if it were just shaded.

Sound Sweet, merciful crap, it's quite possible that the sound is the worst part of Wild Ambition. Every sound -- the effects, music, and voices sound like they were recorded underwater. Horribly washed out and sampled at what sounds like 11KHz, there is no point in even hearing the effects, much less enjoying them. The music is rarely engaging and often sub-standard, and the effects are your standard grunts and "hee-yahs." In fact, the only quality sound comes from the CG movies, which feature crisp, clear effects, and great ambient noise.

The Verdict

It's just disappointing
to see a 2D-to-3D conversion turn out to be so horrible, especially
when it comes from such an awesome lineage. While the game does
boast a few extras, they're not nearly enough to warrant a purchase.